Flightless
by Audrey V
Summary: Erin and Holtzmann learn more about each other on a rainy night. - Friendship, but sorta kinda Holtzbert if you squint?


Erin Gilbert was used to sharing the lab with a whirlwind coalesced in human form. Dr. Jillian Holtzmann did not merely walk through a room, but crashed, careened, danced and flailed through the space. At first the constant spectacle unnerved Erin, but once she had enough time to adapt to the blonde inventor's boundless energy, she actually liked it.

Holtzmann was the sort to skip, skid, slip and tumble, but she did not creep or sneak. Except there she was. Erin watched as Holtzmann, still dripping from being out in the rainstorm, quietly padded over to her workable, her hands cupped together close to her chest.

"Holtz?" Erin asked, her voice echoing across the concrete floor. "You okay?"

Holtzmann froze, her back turned to Erin. "I'm fine."

"What are you holding?"

"Just something I'm working on," she said vaguely. She plucked a small cardboard box from a haphazard pile near her filing cabinet. She crouched down behind her work table where Erin couldn't see what she was doing.

Erin knew Holtzmann would share when she was ready, so she let the subject drop. She turned back to her whiteboard and was soon buried in equations.

Erin forgot about Holtzmann's odd behavior until later that night. She'd already changed for bed when she realized she'd left her book downstairs in the lab. She debated just choosing another, but she was engrossed in the story, so she pulled on her peach silk robe and made her way downstairs.

From the middle landing she heard whimpering. She quietly crouched down so she could see into the space.

Holtzmann was sitting in a corner of the room, on a nest of blankets she used for her midday naps. She was also ready for bed, having traded her overalls and crop top for a pair of sweatpants cut off into shorts and a plain white ribbed tank top. She was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest. A few tendrils of blonde hair that were much longer than Erin expected had worked their way free from from one of Holtzmann's tiny buns.

A fresh sob wracked the engineer's body and she crumpled in on herself. Erin knew she should go and give the woman privacy but some part of her refused.

"Holtz?" She asked quietly. The other woman's head shot up. "You okay?"

"I can't do this with you right now." Holtzmann's voice echoed in the darkened room.

"Do what?"

"Explain. Entertain. Whatever."

"You don't have to do those things." Erin walked over, then gingerly sat on the pile of blankets next to Holtzmann. "But you don't have to be sad by yourself either."

Holtzmann didn't respond. The silence expanded until it enveloped them. Erin resisted the urge to fill the empty space with words. She simply sat, a foot away from Holtzmann, watching as tears ran down her face. They collected under Holtzmann's chin and dropped down onto the pale skin of her chest, just above the edge of her tank top.

After about 20 wordless minutes, Erin got up. She walked down the stairs to the first floor, acutely aware of the gaze that followed her.

When she returned several minutes later, she noted Holtzmann's look of surprise, as if she hadn't expected Erin to come back. Erin settled back into her spot on the blanket, then began to lay out the things she'd gathered: a bottle of blue Gatorade, a chocolate bar, a glass of water, a box of tissues and a short can of Pringles.

"Why are you doing this?" Holtzmann asked, her voice uncharacteristically small. She looked over the spread but didn't move.

"It's what you said. You're my family. I know I probably won't be able to fix whatever is upsetting you, but I can make sure you don't get dehydrated."

Holtzmann swallowed hard. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stifled a laugh.

"You're so… you," she said, looking at Erin. "Like, somebody cries and Patty clasps them to her ample bosom. Abby demands to know who hurt them and then she comes up with a poetically appropriate punishment for the perpetrator. I figured you would just run for the hills, but…" she gestured to the supplies and laughed again. "Were you a Girl Scout?"

"I was."

"Ha! I knew it. Totally prepared." Holtzmann quieted. She blew her nose on one of the tissues and drank some of the Gatorade.

"The blue is my favorite," she mumbled. Her chest heaved with a heavy sigh and she flopped over, curling herself up so she could rest her head in Erin's lap.

Erin held her hands up with her elbows stiff at her sides. Once the shock of Holtzmann's move passed, the redhead made herself relax. She let her arms drop, one to her side, one onto Holtzmann's shoulder.

"I hate being helpless." Holtzmann waited for Erin to interject, but the physicist didn't say a word. "The rain— it started like, BAM. Hard too. Sheets of it. Like 45 seconds after it started I was soaked through, like on a molecular level, you know?" She took a deep breath and continued. "I found this little bird sitting on the sidewalk. It was so wet, its feathers were plastered to its body. It couldn't fly. I don't know if birds can shiver, but it looked like it was shivering. So I picked it up and brought it here."

Erin stroked Holtzmann's hair as she fell silent.

"Can I take these out?" Erin asked when her fingers skipped across a bobby pin. When Holtzmann nodded Erin set to work finding and gently removing each haphazard pin.

"I made it a little nest out of paper towels in that box. It's over by the lamp because it's warmer there, but…"

"But?"

"It's going to die. It's probably already dead." Holtzmann shifted so she was face up, but her eyes were tightly shut. "I can build a trap that teleports ghosts to Michigan, but I can't make a bird live. I knew when I picked it up that it was going to die. I probably should have just left it there to let nature…" Holtzmann opened her eyes and looked up at Erin. "But nothing deserves to die alone, you know?" She said, her voice breaking.

Erin felt her own eyes filling with tears. She tried to blink them away but she could tell Holtzmann had already seen them. "You're right," she said firmly. "That bird spent the last moments of its life warm and loved. Maybe the outcome was the same as if you'd left it on the sidewalk, but you made its journey a little easier. And that matters."

Holtzmann looked up at her for a long moment, then curled up again, this time on the opposite side, facing her. Erin took the opportunity to free the rest of her hair from its chaotic yet structured style.

"My mother died alone." It was barely a whisper, and if Erin hadn't been bent over feeling for bobby pins, she might not have caught it.

She didn't have the right words to say, so she gently stroked Holtzmann's hair, and used her thumb to swipe away a tear from her cheek.

"I couldn't go in the room. I was 20 feet away when it happened. I should have been holding her hand. But I was so scared, and so I just sat there on the floor of the waiting room. I took apart one of the phones from the nurse's station and tried not to think about anything else."

"People deal with grief in different…" Erin trailed off and her hands stilled as she processed what she'd heard. "Holtz… how old were you when she died?"

"Five. Well, almost five. It was a week before my birthday."

"Any five year old would be scared in that situation. I'm sure your mother didn't blame you for not being in the room."

"I don't know. Maybe." Holtzmann grabbed the chocolate bar. She peeled a piece of the wrapper away and broke off two pieces. She reached up and casually popped one piece in Erin's mouth, then ate the other.

"How did she die?"

"Car accident. Rainy night. Semi versus Volvo station wagon." Holtzmann chewed on her lower lip for a moment. "Mom fought for a week but she never woke up."

"I'm so sorry, Holtz."

"They think I lived because I was asleep when it happened. Didn't know to tense up before impact."

"I'm glad you lived." Erin's heart stuttered when Holtzmann grinned up at her.

"Me too." She reached up and delicately poked Erin's nose. "Thanks for listening to me ramble."

"Thank you for telling me."

"Well, I guess I should go deal with the fact that I've got a dead bird in a box over there."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Immolation on the roof." The blonde inventor grinned. "Like a Viking funeral but with blowtorches."

"Want some company?"

"Yeah. I'd like that."

Holtzmann gathered a metal pail, a blowtorch, some kindling and a few old newspapers. Erin got the box and together they climbed up to the roof.

Once they'd arranged the papers and scraps of wood in the pail, Erin handed the box to Holtzmann. The inventor placed her hand on top of it.

"We entrust this creature to the greater universe, with the knowledge that what comes after is beyond our current level of understanding. Although we are definitely making progress," she added with a wink.

"That we are," Erin agreed.

"Hand me that piece of cloth?" Holtzmann gestured to a scrap of pale blue fabric that looked like it used to be the sleeve of a shirt.

"Why?"

"It's going to be a tiny shroud for our feathered compatriot."

"Why don't you just put it in like that?" Erin asked, pointing at the small cardboard box, noticing for the first time that it said "cat food" on the side.

"I need the box," Holtzmann explained.

"You need the dead bird box?"

"Exactly."

Erin rolled her eyes, but she handed the cloth to Holtzmann. She watched the other woman kneel on the concrete and smooth out the strip of fabric.

Holtzmann wrapped the tiny corpse in the cloth and delicately placed it on top of the pile in the bucket. Erin handed her the blowtorch and she fired it up.

"Good journey, little friend," Holtzmann murmured, lighting the tiny pyre ablaze.

The two of them sat, watching until the flames had reduced both bird and kindling to ashes.

"I guess it's time to head in," Holtzmann said, grabbing the blowtorch. "I bet you're tired. I'm sorry for keeping you up."

"I'm not," Erin said quickly. "Tired or sorry that you kept me up." She followed Holtzmann down to the second floor, where the engineer dropped her gear next to her work table.

Holtzmann plopped back down on her blanket nest and grabbed for the can of Pringles. She offered it to Erin, who shook her head as she sat down next to her.

"I'm sorry about your mom," Erin said a few long but not uncomfortable moments later.

"Yeah, well… my mom died when I was 5, you got haunted by a ghost when you were 8. Screwed up childhoods made us stronger, right?"

"I think so." Erin watched Holtzmann toss the Pringles can in the vague direction of the trash, then stretch out behind her. "You're going to sleep down here?"

"I sleep down here most of the time. It's more efficient." Holtzmann paused, then snaked her arms around Erin and pulled her down. "I'm not hitting on you," she said quickly, even though Erin was settling into the embrace without comment.

"I didn't think you were." Erin scooted until her back was pressed against Holtzmann's chest. She took the inventor's arm and tugged it until it was wrapped comfortably around her waist and they were spooning. "I get it. It was a rough night and it feels good to be close to someone."

Erin felt Holtzmann chuckle.

"You surprise me, Gilbert. I didn't figure you for the cuddling type."

"You also didn't think I was a Girl Scout. I'm full of surprises."

"True." Holtzmann paused. "Do you still have the uniform?" She asked with a snicker.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Erin mumbled. "Now go to sleep. You can flirt with me more in the morning."

When Erin woke up the next morning, she was alone. She blinked at the sunlight peeking through the windows as she oriented herself. She saw Holtzmann sitting on the floor a few feet away, facing away from her. Her blonde hair was still loose and cascaded down her back in a tangled mass of curls and she was humming something to herself.

Erin wasn't sure how long she'd been watching Holtzmann when the inventor suddenly turned and grinned at her.

"Sleepyhead! You're awake. C'mere. I have something to show you."

Erin crawled over until she was next to Holtzmann, whose hands were cupped together in front of her. Once Erin was settled and still, she carefully opened them.

There in Holtzmann's paint spattered, calloused hands was a tiny wisp of ectoplasm. As Erin watched, it shimmered and coalesced into the form of a small bird. The bird fluttered its wings and chirped at Erin.

"He was sitting on my work table when I woke up. I'm calling him Castiel." Holtzmann's expression grew serious. "And I'm not putting him in the containment unit and you can't make me."

Erin put out her hand and the ghost bird hopped onto it. There was no pressure where its feet curled around one of her fingers, just a slight chill.

"He doesn't seem malevolent," Erin observed. "I don't see any harm in letting him hang around until he decides to move on to the next thing."

Holtzmann smiled broadly and ruffled Erin's hair. "The next thing," she mumbled, almost to herself. "You think there's a 'next thing' for people?"

Erin considered the question for a moment. "Logically, the ghosts that came through the portal were only a small percentage of the total number of people who've died in New York City, right? So the rest of them have to be somewhere." Erin shrugged. "It's like you said. We don't know yet. But we're making progress."

Holtzmann nodded and stood up. She started to go to her work table but stopped and turned back to Erin. "I have some questions."

"Go for it."

The engineer grinned. "About that Girl Scout uniform…"


End file.
